All the Frills: New Floors, Yay!

These photos look pretty crappy but I’m so excited about the install of our new floors that I really wanted to share them! As you can see, all our baseboards are still off (we’re waiting on the painters before we reattach them) and our walls haven’t yet been painted the pale blue colour we selected, but I am so happy about how the floors came out. And, when the painting gets done, I think the whole thing is going to come together amazingly.

Weekend Reading:

• This article about the former leprosy colony in Hawaii is fascinating.
  
  
• This is a great piece about modern representations of Elizabeth I.
  
  
• The headline is true, this is the best police blotter around.
  
  
• Let’s all burn our flip-flops!
  
  
• This is such a great list of literary characters that empower young women. I’m tearing up thinking about Bridge to Terabithia.
  
  
• Some brilliant individual has ranked all 703 outfits that Rachel wore on Friends. And it is about as amazing as it sounds. Personally I always loved Monica’s clothes a bit more than Rachel’s…maybe someone will rank those next.

Grouch

This is what I wear when I'm feeling grouchy. It’s ridiculously comfortable because my dress is made out of sweatshirt material. It’s basically an oversized sweatshirt. Paired with a sweatshirt. And that is a pretty wonderful thing.

dress: Zara / boots: Aldo / hoodie: Target / necklace: Target / sunglasses: Aldo

Patterned

So I’m not super big on patterns and I tend not to wear them that frequently, but there’s just something about this dress that I gravitate to, pattern and all.

dress: ModCloth / jacket: H&M / shoes: Aldo / sunglasses: Aldo

All the Frills: Home Upgrades

The great home redecorating project of 2015 continues with this awesome new light fixture we got for our bedroom and a king-sized bed frame that we recently upgraded to.

Right now we're smack in the middle of getting new flooring installed (and the associated mess) and getting the whole house painted...photos to come if I ever manage to get everything cleaned up and the rooms put back together again!

Weekend Reading

• This article about stock photos being used for faculty profiles on the websites of some pretty dubious online universities is hilarious.
  
• Ye olde timey status symbols. The pineapple was news to me.
  
• This little piece on what it might be like if Richard III were your coworker is great.
  
• Who wants to play Scrabble?
  
• I’ve got MAJOR closet envy looking at these beauties.
  
• Can I just buy all these chandeliers and hanging lamps? Who wants to front me some cash?

So Many Jackets and Sweaters to Wear One Last Time...

As with my last post, this is another jacket that it’s soon going to be too warm to wear and so I really need to get in a few more wears. Because, sniff, sniff, I love it and am sad that summer means I have to put it away. Ditto for my favourite sweater. Damn you summer.

jacket: H&M / pants: ASOS / shoes: Zara / sunglasses: Aldo / sweater: Sheinside / necklace: Monserat de Lucca

My Conference Cup Overfloweth

It’s going to be too warm to wear this jacket many more times so I’ve got to cram in as many good times wearing it as I can before we march into June. It’s such an awesome jacket that I am going to be really sad when it’s time to put it away for the summer.

In totally unrelated news, I was invited to speak at a conference in London this fall on my much earlier work on Queen Anna of Denmark, the Scottish court in the 1590s, and the early Jacobean court. Before I made the transition to my current research interests, I was all about queens consort, all the time (wow, that's the geekiest thing I've ever written).

I am bummed though because, as amazing of an opportunity as it sounds, this conference is happening a few weeks after we return from Scotland, a few days after I leave for another conference in Banff, and a week before I leave for Arkansas to speak at another conference. So I think I have to turn it down...boo!

jacket: found at Century 21 / shoes: Aldo / sunglasses: Aldo

All the Frills: New Glasses!

Two of my most prized new accessories. An awesome pair of frames sent to me care of Firmoo and adorable little studs shaped like teeth. How can you not love these earrings? And I love my Firmoo frames – I’ve had one of the company’s other frames for about 2 years now and even though they were very inexpensive, the quality is great and I love the way they look. So when they offered me another pair I was pretty jazzed (the kids are still saying that, right?).

Weekend Reading:

• The crazy things that live in the sea are a source of endless fascination for me.
  
• I fully realize that I am one of the new people that will find this interesting but Yale has gotten an insane $175 millions in donations in the past few weeks and one of them (some $25 million) will be used to refurbish the building that housed my department when I was there, and will involve a consequential honorific renaming of the tower connected to the building. I spent a lot of my 6 years at Yale in this space, it’s weird knowing it will soon look different and have a new name.
  
• I don’t know why I love this Tumblr so much, but I do. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen so many all male panels at the various historical conferences I go to?
  
• This history of shape wear is a really good read. And the exhibit it relates to sounds amazing.
  
• Elaine Benes is my spirit animal.
  
• These minimalist posters designed to boost vocabulary are lovely, and not just because some of my favourite words (hello “obfuscatory” and “apostasy”) are there.

Yale Day of Service

Every year Yale has an event they call the Day of Service – people involved with Yale in pretty much any capacity are encouraged to get involved in some form of volunteerism and, well, serve.

Over the past couple of months I’ve been partnering with some Yale alumni here in Alberta to get an alumni chapter up and off the ground so we figured organizing something for the Day of Service would be a great way to get us all together. So I spent the day volunteering with a group of Yale alumni (and, man, was it a fascinating group – for example, several of the women were a part of the first co-ed undergrad classes at Yale when the school started to admit women in 1969).

We worked at a centre for newly arrived refugees and spent the day cleaning the facility from top to bottom and getting their garden all ready for summer and interacting with two families who had recently arrived from Gambia and Liberia. It was an incredible and really humbling experience and, as trite as it sounds, really made me appreciate the ideal of service and made me want to get more involved in giving back to my community. So, all in all, a very successful day. And of course I had to wear my Yale Graduate School shirt for the occasion.

jacket: I found this at a bar, I’m not joking / pants: RW and Co / shirt: Yale

All the Frills: End Table Addict

I’ve got a bit of a thing for accent tables. I have a few tucked into little random spaces around the house that I use as places to display pictures, little knick knacks, etc. These are two of them. One features this awesome candle holder I picked up and serves as a place to store the DVDs of lectures about the Peloponnesian War that I’ve been working my through. I taught a course in Classical Greek history at Yale and have always found the War a fascinating topic so I figured I’d learn even more about it.

The second table features some of my favourite framed photos. One is of me and a bunch of friends from Yale from when our trivia team won a competition and got a ton of cash and a $500 gift certificate to a fancy restaurant in New Haven. The other is of myself and my helpmeet with one of my best friends when we last visited her in NYC. And above these are some gorgeous ink drawings of cathedrals made by my exceptionally talented uncle.

Weekend Reading: 

• I find codpieces fascinating. One of my life goals is to buy a bunch of jock straps and bedazzle the heck out them and try to sell them for big, big money. But until I get around to that I’ll occupy myself with this super interesting history of the codpiece.
  
• This sketch from Smart Girls at the Party is just too good.
  
• Finally, a mock battle I can get behind!
  
• Well, I can’t say this revelation about what has happened to the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram is particularly surprising but it is horrifying.
  
• Can I just leave today for a world tour of these museums? Two of my all time favourites are here (the V and A and the Frick – which I visit every single time I’m in NYC).
  
• There are some historic things happening with Alberta politics right now. Most of you probably don’t care but it’s been hugely exciting here.

May Snows

As I mentioned in a recent post, it’s been pretty windy lately. You sort of get a sense of that in these photos, when the wind whipped my hair around pretty decently. I seriously hate wind. It’s always ruining photos! It also snowed here yesterday whih, I'm not going to lie, I very much enjoyed. Can we just go back to it being winter again?

dress: Simons / booties: Zara / jacket: H&M / sunglasses: Aldo / purse: H&M

Cardigan Party!

A couple of weeks ago the weather here was incredibly windy lately, and it was rather chilly as a result. So even though winter has passed, the situation afforded me an opportunity to get some wear out my chunky, cozy sweaters. I was pretty pleased.

leggings: ASOS / cardigan: H&M / top: Dorothy Perkins / necklace: the Met

All the Frills: Larger than Life Elizabeth I

So my helpmeet got me this GIANT poster of Elizabeth I from a recent exhibition at the Folger (one of the libraries that I’ve most recently researched at….or been a reader at, as they say) for my birthday. It’s totally unnecessary and really way too big. And I love it!

Weekend Reading:

• Ridiculous things you can buy at Victoria’s Secret. I’m partially to the undies with a fart vent.
  
  
• The water in Lake Michigan is so clear right now that you can see all the shipwrecks that line the lake bed. And it’s pretty visually amazing.
  
  
• Well, this is probably every Airbnb user’s worst nightmare.
  
  
• I identify with so many of these it’s scary. I think my Bravo addiction might be pretty serious.
  
  
• Apparently no one likes Times New Roman.
  
  
• This piece on the prevalence of douching is really disconcerting.